Re^2: Is it still worth learning Perl as a first language?

[BrowserUk]

It pays to be a generalist, not a specialist,

You are a generalist in the sense that, you know nothing about anything, rather than are weak on something in particular.

You are -- at the risk of repeating myself from a loong time ago -- a charlatan; a fake; a fakir(as in mendicant; for attention); a wastrel; a fraud; a con; an impostor; a shyster; a phony; a quack; a pretender; a cozener; in short, the epitomous snake-oil salesman.

The weird thing is you've been at this for 11 years (here; elsewhere for longer), and you've been known as such for almost as long; and yet, you still keep up the pretense.

Now, there are a few possibilities to explain your persistence:

1. You are clever.

   It had to be mentioned as a possibility; but obviously not.

2. You are stupid.

   Harder for me to discount; but there is some semblance of logic to some of what you write.

   What you write is (or more often: was) usually: vaguely, approximately, superficially; on topic: if you squint your eyes, suspend disbelief, and hark back to the prevailing winds of 30 years ago. Everything -- without exception -- that you proffer as wisdom; was cutting edge circa. 1985, and was rapidly and comprehensively discounted in the years -- <5 in most cases -- since. You apparently missed that memo.

   If you take it that about 10% of what you write is on-topic; and about 10% of that, was once considered a possibility; and 1% of that, was still being suggested as an alternative less than 20 years ago; and 10% of that you understood back then; and 1% of that you've ever actually applied in th field; and what remains is akin, but more dilute, than a Homeopathic Remedy. So dilute as to be nonexistent. But not stupid.

3. That leaves one possibility; the one we're not meant to mention -- at least if we mean it as a serious possibility -- for fear of crossing the PC boundaries.

   What they hay! This place is dead anyway.

   It -- the unmentionable possibility -- rhythms with: 'gentle senility'.

   If you are, you won't realise it, and won't defend it; if you aren't, and do, it shows your intent is malignant.

In short, you're obviously not clever; and it's questionable if you are stupid; which only leaves the latter alternative, and that looking harder and harder to discount.